Sheraton's supplier, Nortel, is looking to its solution providers to help push VoIP over the long term. In a bid to better equip its partner base, Nortel is in the process of rolling out its Partner Advantage Program. With 80 partners signed up so far, the new program consists of three tiers: Elite Advantage for its 20 largest partners, Premium Advantage, which will max out at about 75 partners, and Advantage for the rest of its resellers.

The power of the U.S. cable and satellite TV industries rests on the 85 million households they count as subscribers. But the influence of Hollywood, which controls the entertainment flow, is even more formidable.

The European antitrust office and Microsoft Corp. clashed Thursday over whether last month's landmark ruling against the U.S. software giant would survive on appeal, in light of a new decision from the European Union's highest court that set strict guidelines for monopoly cases.

It takes a former IBMer to design his own home systems like an IBM mainframe. But, although the concept may initially seem 22nd century, once you give it a bit of thought, designing a home system the way you'd design Big Iron might not so far-fetched.

Allyson Seelinger, Symantec's vice president of North American channels and VARBusiness' 2002 Channel Executive of the Year, has been promoted to vice president, global channel sales and strategy. In her new role, Seelinger will be responsible for developing and executing the company's global channel strategy, and leading its worldwide partner organization.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Wednesday sent a letter to customers that trumpets the company's Dynamic Systems Initiative and management software lineup, including the planned Systems Center 2005, and points out its work with ISV partners to enable management of mixed systems and applications in the data center.

Michael Dell projects $1B in new Dell revenue

To further extend its presence in enterprise, Dell said Wednesday that it will team with global software vendor SAP on Unix-to-Linux and Unix-to-Windows migration initiatives through a new offering called Dell Migration Services.

The issue is called a political 'hot potato'

While states continue to strive to take on the best business and IT practices of their corporate-customer counterparts, offshore outsourcing is one function that doesn't sit well in the public sector. The issue of whether to allow public-sector agencies to use offshore IT providers or even domestic government contractors that are sourcing work overseas was a hotly debated topic among state CIOs this week (April 25-27) at the spring National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) conference in Chicago.

Before the year 2000, election night in Monroe County, N.Y., was a marathon. Election officials at every polling venue started counting votes at 9 p.m. and inputted the results into the creaky 15-year-old mainframe system used to gather voting data. Because of the cumbersome quality of the process, election officials stayed up until 2 a.m. to finally declare the winners.

Doron Kempel says selling hyper-convergence can be challenging for solution providers, but success will come from taking business from competitors that are unprepared or hesitant to embrace the technology.